The files from Tom Hofeller that Rick keeps mentioning in the context of the census case were given to advocates in North Carolina primarily for use in a redistricting case in state court (i.e., not affected by the SCOTUS ruling … Continue reading
Category Archives: chicanery
Reports from CNN and The Hill on potential campaign-finance charges against executives in the Trump Organization. FWIW, I fully believe that the sources are being accurately quoted, but I’m always pretty skeptical about underlying representations of whether prosecutions are or … Continue reading
Fascinating read. … Continue reading
Hi. Please don’t consider this a preview for the coming week: most of the posts will be a lot shorter. I promise. Until yesterday, the official government reason for getting citizenship information in connection with the decennial census was the … Continue reading
NYT: The Federal Election Commission said on Thursday that a Silicon Valley security company could immediately start helping 2020 presidential candidates defend their campaigns from the kinds of malicious email attacks that Russian hackers exploited in the 2016 election.The F.E.C. … Continue reading
AP: The Trump administration warned of unspecified “active threats” to U.S. elections as top security officials briefed Congress Wednesday on steps the government has taken to improve election security in the wake of Russian interference in 2016.Director of National Intelligence … Continue reading
Politico: House Democrats and Senate Republicans may have attended similar classified briefings on election security Wednesday, but they left with opposite conclusions.House Democrats expressed deep concerns about the White House’s ability to protect voting systems in 2020, drawing fresh scrutiny … Continue reading
NYT: Almost immediately after the news broke of Ms. Katz’s breakthrough, people began speculating about more nefarious explanations.In particular, Ms. Cabán’s supporters have accused the Queens County Democratic Party, whose leaders supported Ms. Katz, of engineering the disqualification of so … Continue reading
Casey Corcoran, Bo Julie Crowley and Raina Davis LAT oped. … Continue reading
Dallas Morning News: Texas has passed a new law that lets lawmakers conceal their emails and other communications from public scrutiny, as they prepare to redraw the state’s voting maps.The law’s Republican authors, North Texas’ Rep. Charlie Geren and Sen. Kelly … Continue reading
NYT: From top to bottom, the website, JoeBiden.info, breezily mocks the candidate in terms that would warm the heart of any Bernie Sanders supporter: There are GIFs of Mr. Biden touching women and girls, and blurbs about his less-than-liberal policy … Continue reading
Politico: Former President Jimmy Carter questioned the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency on Thursday, saying he would likely not be in the White House if the Russians did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election.“I think a full investigation would … Continue reading
From the DOJ press release: From October 2013 through November 2013, Raia instructed Dio Braxton, Matt Calicchio, Lizaida Camis, and other conspirators who worked for his campaign, to pay certain Hoboken voters $50 if those voters applied for and cast … Continue reading
Important Greg Sargent interview with Sen. Wyden. … Continue reading
Mother Jones reports. … Continue reading
FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub with this WaPo oped: Concerns about foreign attempts to intervene in our political system date back to the founding of our republic. As chair of the Federal Election Commission, I am gravely concerned about ongoing efforts … Continue reading
My Written Testimony begins: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to speak about a matter that is among the greatest concerns I have had in twenty-five years of researching and teaching about American election law and … Continue reading
LAT: Does receiving ‘dirt’ on an opponent count?Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University, said he did not believe so.“My view is that an in-kind contribution has to have some determinate economic value,” he said.Brad Smith, a … Continue reading
WaPo editorial. … Continue reading
WaPo editorial. … Continue reading
WaPo: President Trump on Sunday floated the possibility of staying in office longer than two terms, suggesting in a morning tweet that his supporters might “demand that I stay longer.”The president, who will kick off his reelection campaign on Tuesday … Continue reading
Read this quite damning portrait: A tiny federal agency that plays a crucial role in assisting the nation’s local election supervisors is gripped by a leadership crisis that hassparked concerns that it is unprepared to play its role in protecting … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy blogs. … Continue reading
Here on the News Hour (beginning around the 11 minute mark). … Continue reading
Politico: The head of the Federal Election Commission released a statement on Thursday evening reiterating, emphatically, that foreign assistance is illegal in U.S. elections.“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It … Continue reading
Politico: Nearly two years ago, FBI Director Chris Wray set up an office tasked solely with stopping the type of Russian interference efforts that infected the 2016 campaign.On Wednesday night, President Donald Trump undercut the whole operation in a matter … Continue reading
Axios: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) blocked an effort by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to pass a bill via unanimous consent requiring campaigns to report any offers of foreign assistance to the FBI.“We are all for free and fair and honest elections. … … Continue reading
San Diego Union-Tribune: Years of cavalier spending of her husband’s political contributions culminated in a guilty plea Thursday for Margaret Hunter, the wife of Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter who was co-indicted last year in a sweeping campaign-finance investigation.During a change-of-plea … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
TPM: President Trump’s voter fraud commission has been dead for nearly a year and a half.But the litigation spurred by its lack of transparency continues, with a judge on Tuesday suggesting that the administration misled the court about the appointment of certain … Continue reading
NBC News: One likely piece of legislation would be framed as “Duty to Report,” requiring presidential campaign aides and entities to report foreign contacts and influence to law enforcement after Mueller identified numerous such interactions between Trump campaign aides and … Continue reading
Marci Wheeler on the tea leaves. … Continue reading
NYT: A raft of legislation to better secure United States election systems after what the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, called a “sweeping and systematic” Russian attack in 2016 is running into a one-man roadblock in the form of the Senate … Continue reading
Politico: Senate investigators have added yet another name to the constantly evolving cast of characters in the Russia investigation.On April 5, just 2 weeks after Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his final report on Russia’s election interference, the Senate Intelligence … Continue reading
More major allegations coming out of the Hofeller hard drives. See this pdf, beginning at Exhibit C, page 7 (page 113 of the pdf). Some snippets from the plaintiff’s letter: … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
Politico: Democrats lurching toward potential impeachment and ramping up their probes of President Donald Trump are becoming increasingly worried that the Justice Department will subvert their efforts.An internal DOJ watchdog report on the origins of the Russia probe is expected to spotlight … Continue reading
Washington Post: It was a single phrase, offered without elaboration, in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report: In August 2016, hackers working for Russian military intelligence “installed malware on the company network” of an unnamed voter registration technology vendor … Continue reading
Politico: Russia’s infamous troll farm conducted a campaign on Twitter before the 2016 elections that was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known, research from cybersecurity firm Symantec out Wednesday concluded.The Internet Research Agency campaign may not only have had … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NBC News reports. … Continue reading
Axios: The 2020 presidential campaigns appear to have done little to prepare for what experts predict could be a flood of fake videos depicting candidates doing or saying something incriminating or embarrassing.Driving the news: The recent manipulated video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi … Continue reading
Jonathan Allen for NBC News: On one level, Trump’s brash lobbying in foreign countries is just another case of norm-busting for a president who often rejects the niceties of both domestic and international politics. But at a deeper level, Trump’s … Continue reading
Sacramento Bee: Just days before a state Senate special election Tuesday, a mysterious letter threatening to publicly expose voters who don’t cast ballots has begun appearing in mailboxes across Northern California, prompting a state inquiry into whether election laws have been … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times: Andrew Gillum is a focal point of a recently issued federal grand jury subpoena that demands information on the former Democratic candidate for governor, his campaign, his political committee, a wealthy donor, a charity he worked for … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Special counsel Robert Mueller issued a final statement on Wednesday before resigning from the Department of Justice, which clearly appeared aimed at one person: Nancy Pelosi. Mueller’s simple message to Pelosi is that it is … Continue reading
Follow my tweet thread starting here: This seemed to be the purpose of the statement. Mueller's 's given everything Congress needs to start impeachment proceedings if it so chooses. He couldn't have been clearer. There's certainly enough to investigate impeachment … Continue reading
Fred Wertheimer for Just Security. … Continue reading
WaPo: Nearly a year after a gay freelance hairstylist living in Harlem posted a Facebook video repudiating the Democratic Party, Brandon Straka found himself in Trump Tower on Thursday speaking with Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and a senior campaign … Continue reading
TPM: J. Christian Adams — a former member of President Trump’s voter fraud commission who has been sued for defamation for his reports claiming mass fraud — will have to sit for another deposition in the case, after a last-minute discovery dump … Continue reading